Monthly Archives: October 2011

Taking Flight with Lady Liberty

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What comes to mind when you think of the Statue of Liberty? America, freedom, democracy. Her image is immediately recognized around the world as an ambassador for the United States and icon of the American dream.  She has been the focal point of many a celebration over the years and in several cases, the gracious hostess (and waypoint) for aerial races and demonstrations.  In celebration of her 125th anniversary, we gathered a few images, objects, and posters that feature inspiring views of Lady Liberty in the context of flight.

Wilbur Wright flies a Wright Type A by the Statue of Liberty during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives)

Wilbur Wright  was contracted for $15,000 to make a series of flights during the two-week Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909, which was commemorating the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s first entry into what would become New York Harbor, and the centennial of Robert Fulton’s first voyage of his North River Steamboat up the Hudson River in 1809. Wilbur made a seven-minute flight on September 29th , circling the Statue of Liberty.  On October 4th, he made a long-distance flight of more than 33 minutes and approximately 20 miles from Governor’s Island to Grant’s Tomb and back, again circling the Statue of Liberty.  It is estimated that a million people witnessed Wilbur’s flight up the Hudson from Governor’s Island. For these flights, Wilbur attached a red canoe under the airplane as a make-shift pontoon in the event he was forced down in the water.  The canoe survives and today is on display in Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio.

The popular journal "Harper's Weekly" covered Wilbur's circling of the Statue of Liberty. An original is on display in "The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age" exhibition in Washington, DC. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives)

John Bevins Moisant flew over New York Harbor in 1910 in a Blériot XI monoplane. This flight took place during the Statue of Liberty Flight prize race on October 27, 1910.  The race was the final event in one of the first major flying meetings held in the U.S., the International Aviation Tournament at Belmont Park, NY.

Clock from the Lindbergh King Collection ( (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

Lady Liberty appears frequently in memorabilia commemorating Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. On this clock, displayed at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the Statue of Liberty represents New York (America) while the Eiffel Tower represents Paris (Europe) with the Spirit of St. Louis flying between them. Not to scale, of course.

TWA used an inspiring visual of Lady Liberty with one of their Lockheed Constellation aircraft in this advertisement for commercial passenger service to and across the U.S. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

 

Bill Bennett demonstrates his tow-kite in a flight around the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1969. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

Bill Bennett played a key role in the initial development of hang gliding in the U.S. He was a spectacular promoter of the sport and stirred publicity for his tow-kites when he flew near the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1969, released his towrope and circled the monument twice, landing at its base. Several of his gliders are in our collection.

In 1986, a major celebration was held for the restoration and 100 year anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty Weekend included a blimp race and flyover by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team.  We don’t have any images from Liberty Weekend handy, but here is a great shot of the Thunderbirds with Lady Liberty in 2005.

Six F-16 Fighting Falcons with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team fly in formation over the Statue of Liberty before an air show May 26, 2005. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Josh Clendenen)

Over the years, the Statue of Liberty has symbolized many things, Freedom, Enlightenment, Compassion, Acceptance to all those arriving in the land of opportunity — what does she mean to you?

Secretary Langley on a Really Good Cup of Coffee

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Langley

Samuel P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Photograph by R. H. Lord

Samuel P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Photograph by R. H. Lord, SI 87-17019.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

As the Museum’s Archives Division packs up and continues with our epic move to the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center, we’re occasionally featuring highlights from our collections. When I was working on a collection of the aeronautical papers of Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906), the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I was struck by the wealth of detail in his research and the meticulousness of his note-taking. And as a man whose interests ranged from astronomy, astrophysics, aeronautics, and bird flight, mathematics, and the reckoning of standard time, Langley enjoyed observing and describing all sorts of processes — and then suggesting improvements. Take this undated memo in which Langley describes in minute detail the preparation of of a really good cup of coffee at the Posthof café in the spa town of Carlsbad in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic) to his niece Mary:

Dear Mary,

I hope this will interest you.

Affectionately,

Your Uncle Samuel

The best coffee in Carlsbad is at the Posthof, and is as good as I know of anywhere. I have been looking into the kitchen this morning and seeing it prepared. The statement that figs or anything of the kind are employed is legendary. There is absolutely nothing but coffee, and it owes its superior excellence to the freshness and the pains taken in its making.

1. The coffee in the berry.

There are four kinds of coffee bean employed: the Menado, Ceylon, Java and Preanger. I do not know the English equivalents for the first and last. They are of very different sizes indeed, and this difference in size of the berry must make it difficult to burn them equally.

2. Roasting.

The roasting is done in a rotary wire mesh over a slow fire. The coffee is renewed three times daily. Each time 10 to 20 pounds of coffee is roasted, a girl turning the handle, and the process occupying in each case nearly an hour. In spite of this care, when the beans come out some of them are very dark and these are picked out.

3. Grinding.

The coffee is then ground to a very uniform fineness, something between the head of a small pin and a coarse sand. It is in no ways ground into a snuff-like powder, but is always clearly perceptible as particles between the fingers. The color of the ground coffee is a light chestnut.

4. Mixing with water.

Somewhat over one-quarter of a pound of the ground coffee is measured in a tin and this is emptied into a tin pail holding, I suppose, four to six gallons. Into this is poured, actually boiling soft water, enough to make 10 portions of the coffee. This softness is considered so important, that if the water be at all hard, a little soda is first added to soften it. The coffee and water are then well stirred with a spoon, and the lid put on and allowed to remain two minutes, when it is poured onto a thick straining cloth placed in a tin vessel with large holes at the bottom through which it drains into a white stone pitcher, which is itself set in boiling water. From this pitcher it is poured into the little ones in which it is served on the table.

5. Serving.

The amount of coffee and water just described will, as I have said, make 10 portions, each of which will be, with the addition of the milk, two of the little cups here, or hardly one good breakfast cup as we have it at home. It is served ordinarily with milk which has been boiled, and which has a little whipped cream on top.

6. Comment.

The one criticism I can make is that the coffee with the above proportion of water, is served too diluted for a café au lait. It would be better made half as strong again and diluted with a larger proportion of hot milk.

 

(From the Samuel P. Langley Collection (Accession XXXX-0494), box 38, folder 58. Another collection of Langley’s papers is held by the Smithsonian Institution Archives.)

 

Very interesting — who actually uses figs in coffee-making? But if Secretary Langley were still with us today, I think that I would rather not be the barista at his local coffee shop.

 

Allan Janus is  a museum specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

The Tomboy of the Air

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Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website .

One hundred and one years ago, on October 23, 1910, Blanche Stuart Scott made her first public flight with the Glenn Curtiss Exhibition Team in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Scott, billed as the “Tomboy of the Air,” is one of America’s earliest female aviators.  There is conflicting evidence regarding the exact date of Blanche Stuart Scott’s first solo flight, so we may never determine which of Scott or Bessica Raiche was, indeed, America’s first female to fly solo.

 

Blanche Stuart Scott

Blanche Stuart Scott seated at the controls of a Curtiss Model D, circa early 1910s. SI-72-4803-A

 

There are also conflicting reports on Scott’s appearance in Fort Wayne.  The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette reported that Scott flew across the field and landed immediately, though she had wished to make a few circles.  In later years, Scott remembered making eight circles of the field.  In most reports, Scott’s flew at a height of approximately twelve feet, ostensibly because show promoters did not want outside spectators to get a free show.

Regardless of these conflicting reports, Blanche Stuart Scott is a pioneer of American aviation.  The Blanche Stuart Scott Collection (Acc. No. XXXX-0062) at the National Air and Space Museum Archives Division contains 0.0283 cubic meters (one cubic foot) of material relating to the pioneering aviatrix. It includes correspondence, memorabilia, and a great many newspaper clippings.   A finding aid to the collection can be found in both PDF and HTML formats.  The Archives Division also has a sizeable file on Scott in its Biographical Technical Files.

Elizabeth C. Borja is a reference services archivist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division.

Costume Ideas from the Great War

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ballet

An Aeronautical Ballet, 1918. NASM 9A 02153

If you’re still stumped over what your costume will be for next Saturday’s big Air & Scare at the Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center (October 29 from 2 – 8 pm), the photograph shown above, from the July 1918 issue of Die Luftflotte, might provide some inspiration. The Hamburg Youth Division of the German Airfleet Association (the Deutscher Luftflotten-Verein) performs their “great and patriotic” aeronautical ballet Through Battle to Victory at a rally of the association to benefit  injured pilots and their families. The dancers outfitted as monoplanes are a superb touch – the fellow on the right with the hammer must be Thor, but there’s no explanation in the original caption as to what the other characters portray. Maybe the chap with the umbrella is portraying a Morane Parasol fighter?

If you picked an aircraft-themed costume for Halloween, what would you choose? I’d like to go trick-or-treating as a sleek SPAD XIII or an Albatros D.Va. But sadly, I’d be more realistic as a blimp… Add your choice to the comments.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Museum’s Archives Division.

 

The STS-135 crew comes for a visit

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The National Air and Space Museum was once again honored to host a space shuttle crew this past Friday. This visit was special because it was the STS-135 crew of the shuttle Atlantis, the historic final mission that returned on July 21. The crew was only four astronauts for this last flight, smaller than the normal seven.  Commander Christopher Ferguson explained that it was originally a contingency mission but in the end NASA decided that it was needed to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).

STS-135 crew

STS-135 crew takes questions from an audience in the Moving Beyond Earth gallery of the National Air and Space Museum. Left to right, Rex Walheim (mission specialist), Sandy Magnus (mission specialist), Doug Hurley (pilot), and Chris Ferguson (mission commander).

A surprising number of people in the audience had attended the launch and the energy in the room was palpable.  The audience included students visiting from Peru and a class from Bristol, England via videoconference.  Against a backdrop of a space shuttle model under a stunning projection of the limb of the Earth, the crew told about their trip and acknowledged its emotional impact. All were veterans of other missions and knew this may be their last trip to space.  Commander Ferguson admitted he found it difficult to leave to return to Earth and that the last night in space they all took time to reflect on their experiences as astronauts. They shared a group photo taken in space with a small U.S. flag that had been aboard STS-1, the first shuttle mission 30 years ago. They explained that they left the flag on the ISS in hopes that a future crew will return it to Earth and then take it again into space. [See video of the full presentation.]

crew

Space Shuttle "Atlantis" STS-135 crew. From left to right, Doug Hurley (pilot), Sandy Magnus (mission specialist), Rex Walheim (mission specialist) and Chris Ferguson (mission commander).

Astronaut crews are great at answering the many questions that they receive from curious Museum visitors. This time the questions included:  What’s next for NASA? What’s a typical day like for an astronaut? Is the US going to the Moon again? Why go back to a capsule design? What is the food like in space? What does it feel like to return to Earth after being in space for several months? (Mission specialist Sandra Magnus answered that one because she lived on the ISS for four months). My favorite question was “does the shuttle get hot inside during re-entry?”  Pilot Douglas Hurley said astronauts don’t feel the inside cabin get warmer. They maneuver the shuttle to keep it cool before the descent to Earth and he said it feels like winter in the cabin. Most fascinating was his description of the pink and orange plasma that lit up the darkness around the shuttle on re-entry.  Because the landing happened at night, the light show was spectacular.

As they ended their presentation they showed the final photograph taken of a shuttle in space.  Of thousands of spectacular photos taken of shuttles in space over 30 years, perhaps this one is most poignant. It represents the end of an era.

Shuttle

"Atlantis" is pictured here in the last photograph ever taken of a space shuttle in space. Copyright: Aerospace Corporation, 2011.

Fortunately,  there is another chapter to the shuttle story. The shuttle fleet will be preserved and on display in museums around the country. The National Air and Space Museum looks forward to receiving Discovery next year.  If the shuttles could talk they would have many stories to tell.  It is left for historians to tell those stories and next year the Museum will complete installation of Moving Beyond Earth, a new exhibition devoted to the story of human spaceflight in the shuttle era and beyond.

And, of course, the Museum looks forward to hosting the next astronaut crew, whenever that will be.

Do you have memories of meeting shuttle astronauts?  Share your story.

Tim Grove is Chief of Education for the Museum in Washington, DC.